I drew back my fist and slammed it into his jaw before I even thought twice about it. It felt so good, I almost did it again, until Serge ducked and hit me with an uppercut that sent me flying backward into the side of the building. That felt good, too. After feeling nothing but deep sorrow for a month, I was ready to trade it some good old anger.
I went for him again and he was there, ready for me. He took my punches and gave back just as good as he got. Rolling around on the ground, we tussled until we were too tired to keep going.
Flat on my back on the sandy ground, I looked up at the sky and swore. “I don’t know why I just blurted it all out to her like that.”
Serge sat up. “We told you to. Sure, maybe you could’ve had a little more finesse about it, but we all thought it was the right way to go, man.”
“This is killing me. Literally.”
“I was there. When I couldn’t get Hannah to talk to me, I thought I was dying, and that was only for a couple of days. I feel for you. I really do. You can’t just give up, though.”
“I haven’t.” I sat up and looked out at the ocean. “I go by her house every night to see if she’s back. She’s not. Her jackass of a husband—”
“Ex-husband, from what I hear.”
“Yeah. Ex-husband. He’s still there. The fucker hasn’t done a thing to the place. It still has damage from the storm. You’d think he’d at least make the repairs since he’s staying there. I’d really like to tear him to pieces and feed him to the sharks. Hell, maybe if I did, she’d come home.”
“No hurting humans—if you can help it. Just remember that.”
I dug my fingers into the sand and scowled. “She’s got to come back. She has to.”
“She will. And then things will work themselves out. You’re mates. That means something.” He stood up. “If you hit me again, I’m going to have the rest of the guys beat your ass, though.”
I waved him off and sighed. Looking back out at the water, I wondered for the millionth time where she was. I wanted to believe Serge was right, but I wasn’t so sure. I’d somehow managed to fuck things up so royally. I shouldn’t have told her. I should’ve just waited until she trusted me more. I hadn’t been thinking, though. I was so afraid of losing her to that asshole’s manipulation that I’d jumped the gun and scared her.
Everything in me felt like it was closing down—dying. Now that I’d met her, I found living without her pointless. I wanted to come home to her smiling face, and taste the sweetness of her lips. I wanted to be the one to comfort her when she was upset and build her back up when she was feeling down. I wanted her to be the one I shared my day with. I wanted to indulge in simple things that I hadn’t thought mattered before her.
The kicker was that the heat didn’t bother me anymore. While the other guys still sweated in front of the crappy AC unit, I couldn’t care less. What did it matter that I was a little physically uncomfortable when the real pain was lodged deep in my heart?
I swore and dragged myself to my feet. I had to do something, anything. I was slowly going insane. Without anything better to do, I decided that it was time to take out her trash.
I couldn’t hurt her fuckface ex-husband, but Serge hadn’t said anything about scaring the shit out of him.
24
Megan
“Hello?” I let myself into the house and prepared myself for coming face to face with my now ex-husband. “Dylan?”
I hadn’t talked to him since the lawyers fast-tracked the divorce for me. I wasn’t looking forward to it.
But all that met me was silence and an empty house. I looked around before breathing a huge sigh of relief. It appeared that Dylan was gone. There was nothing of his anywhere in the house and the entire place had been cleaned and put in order. The window in the bedroom was fixed, and even the destroyed mattress had been hauled away.
Back downstairs, I sank into the couch. That was a big weight off my shoulders. I closed my eyes, letting the silence envelop me.
My mother’s house was never quiet. Mom had been living in Miami lately since her newest husband, Jerry, wanted to be closer to his middle-school-aged daughter, especially after the hurricane scare. Mom was always yelling at the poor hired help. Jerry was always yelling at his daughter, and the daughter was always just yelling.
Then, there were the parties. Mom was a social butterfly when it came to parties. She even threw one for my divorce, much to my dismay. She invited all of her socialite friends, and I saw way more than my fair share of drug use and weird sex that night. Apparently, divorce parties made the jet set frisky.
I should’ve left and gotten myself a nice, quiet hotel room after the first night, but it had still been hard to be alone with my thoughts. I’d even become good friends with one of her gardeners, a middle-aged guy named Emmett. We snuck into the shed during my divorce party and played gin rummy all night long. Anything to avoid being alone.
Being alone meant I would be obsessing over Roman. I still had dreams about him every night. I woke up hot and bothered and tangled in sweaty sheets. And it was only getting worse! There wasn’t anything that didn’t make me think of Roman. I had to make up some phony excuse for my middle-school-aged stepsister as to why the documentary we were watching about polar bears made me cry.
The only reason I’d finally decided to return home was that the divorce was finalized and it was time to stand up to Dylan and take my life back. I couldn’t hide forever.
Sitting on my couch, I now wondered if I’d returned too soon. The silence already felt heavy. I needed to face things, though, like an adult.
I headed up to the guestroom to shower and get ready for bed. Wearing a new nightgown that Mom had bought me, I slipped between the sheets and tried to think of anything other than the last night I’d been in the same bed, and the handsome man who’d been showering me with attention.
It was too early to sleep, just after sunset, but I really didn’t know what else to do, and now that I’d returned, the thoughts of Roman were becoming even more overwhelming. A month should’ve been enough time to work the guy out of my system. I’d blinked and been over Dylan. Why couldn’t I do the same with Roman, who I had only known for a day?
My phone rang from my pants pocket on the floor and I ignored it. When the ringing started up again, I leaned over and fished it out. “Hello?”
“Hey, baby girl! Did you get home okay?” My mom sounded tipsy already.
“Yeah, Mom. I’m home.”
“Is that asshole still there?”
“No, actually. He’s gone. The house is clean, too, which was completely unexpected. I thought I’d find it destroyed.” I settled back against my pillow and stared up at the ceiling. “Everything okay there?”
“Well, yes. We’re just missing you.” She paused. “Sweetie?”
“Yeah, Mom?”
“The best way to get over Dylan is to just jump back into the dating pool. Go out on a date and have some fun. You’re beautiful and there’s no reason you should sit around moping and wasting your best years.”
I just rolled my eyes. “Okay, Mom.”
“I’m serious. Put on your best Spanx and one of those little dresses I got you.”
“The nightgowns?”
“Yes! Aren’t they just the cutest?”
“You want me to go out in a nightie to get a date?”
“Why not? You’re young and free, Megan. Oh, to be single and in my early thirties again…”
“Okay, Mom. I need to go.” Before she could scar me permanently, I hung up and turned my ringer off. I didn’t need any more unsolicited advice from my mother.
I closed my eyes and played the counting sheep game, which actually worked. It didn’t keep me asleep for long, though. I awoke with a start a few hours later and realized I’d been dreaming about Roman again.
I got up and stretched, knowing that I’d had about all the sleep I was going to get that night. My mind was spinning. I wondered what Roman was doing. Had he moved on?
Had he just told me that stuff about being a polar bear to scare me off because he wanted to get away from me, or did he really believe that he was a shapeshifter?
They were the same questions I’d asked myself over and over again, but they were always freshest on my mind after a dream. The dreams were usually of a massive snow-white bear walking beside me, but I was never scared of it. It was my protector. It was Roman.
I walked downstairs and had just passed the windows that looked out over the ocean when I froze. “You’re absolutely losing it, Megan.”
Slowly, I backed up. I looked out the window again and felt my heart skip a beat. Something was in the water. Something large and white and much bigger than a person. My stomach fluttered, and I gasped when I got a really good look at it. It was a bear. A huge, fucking polar bear.
Before I could even think through what I was doing, I was racing out of my house, down the stairs, across the sand, and plunging into the water. “Stop! Come back!”
Up to my hips, I moved harder, desperate. I had to know. The butterflies in my stomach swore that it was Roman. Had I lost my mind, too? There could not really be a polar bear swimming off the Florida Keys. “Roman!”
And then it was just a few feet away from me. Standing on its back feet in the water, it towered over me.
Its eyes. Those were the giveaway. A sob tore from my throat and I covered my mouth with my hands. It was definitely him.
A bear one second, Roman the next, he stood in the waves with me, just staring back at me. His face looked pained and hesitant. I don’t know which one of us moved first, but a second later I was wrapped around him like a burrito.
If this was a dream, I didn’t want to wake up.
25
Megan
I kissed him, desperate for the taste of him on my lips. I grasped his face and then his head and neck as I deepened the kiss. His hair was longer under my fingers, his beard thicker against my face. I’d missed him so much. I locked my legs around his waist and cried. “You aren’t crazy!”
We were moving through the water, the waves hitting me lower and lower until we were out of them. Roman gripped me with one hand under my ass and the other braced around my back. “Why would you run into the ocean toward a bear?”
I might have taken offense to the tone of his question if he wasn’t kissing me back in between words. I tilted my head back when his lips moved to my throat. “I knew it was you. Why didn’t you show me? All this time, I thought you had mental problems. Why didn’t you make me believe you?”
We stumbled up a few steps and paused for a second. Roman’s hands never stopped moving. “Stupid. I was so stupid.”
I gasped as he bounced me higher and carried me the rest of the way up the stairs in his arms. He kicked the door closed behind us and sat me down on the kitchen island. The granite was cold under my ass, but Roman was there, stroking my throat with his tongue, pushing the nightgown straps down my shoulders.
“Tell me you’re okay with this, Megan. Tell me you want me, too.”
“I want you.” I gasped as his mouth moved across my shoulder. “I’m more than okay with it. As long as you don’t stop.”
He growled and nipped my shoulder before pulling back and staring into my eyes. “I have to tell you a few more things before we do this. I want to make sure you know what you’re getting into.”
I bit my lip, needier than I’d ever felt. “Talk fast.”
“I’m going to bite you.”
I moaned and dropped my head back. “As in foreplay? I don’t need it, Roman.”
“I’m going to mark you. If you’ll let me. My bear…he recognizes you, too, as our mate. I want to claim you as mine. Forever.” He growled as my foot stroked up the back of his thigh. “Do you understand that? Forever, Megan.”
I met his heated gaze and clarity washed over me. It was a clarity that ran deeper than his words. How it could be the easiest decision I’d ever made, I didn’t know. It should’ve been harder, especially after Dylan, but it wasn’t. “Forever.”
He stepped back into me and kissed me fiercely. His hands worked my nightgown lower, exposing my bare breasts and stomach. As he kissed me, his fingertips traced up my sides and then down my back before lowering me back on the island.
I gasped at the cold granite, but it faded when I saw the way Roman was staring down at me. Heat—pure, unfiltered heat and need washed over me as I saw the same reflected back from him. He growled low in his throat and cupped my breasts. I arched my back and offered them up to him.
“Fuck, you’re beautiful.” He closed his mouth over one nipple and then the other, slowly torturing both of them until I writhed. He only pulled back to kiss down my stomach, dipping his tongue into my navel before ripping my nightgown down the middle, exposing my panties.
He pressed his mouth to me over the panties, his tongue hot and wet enough to drive me wild. His hair had grown long enough to grip, so I did. Pulling his face into me, I rolled my hips under his mouth. Roman yanked my panties down and quickly devoured me.
I screamed out an orgasm in seconds—faster than I wanted, but then he was lifting me into his arms and carrying me up the stairs. In my bedroom, he gently put me on the bed and then climbed over me.
“You’re the one for me, Megan. The only woman for me.” He kissed me slowly while lowering his body to mine.
“I haven’t stopped thinking about you while I was gone. I missed you. I missed you as if I’d known you my whole life.” I wrapped my arms and legs around him and gasped when his shaft rested against my core. “Roman.”
He gripped my hips as he lifted himself and lined our bodies up. Then one of his hands grasped the hair at the back of my head as he slowly sank into me, inch by inch.
Clutching his shoulders, I let out a soft moan as he filled me completely. White hot pleasure tingled through me instantly and I rode out that wave until Roman pulled out and then sank back in. His mouth next to mine, our breath mingled. His eyes burned into me as he watched my reactions. Stroke by stroke, he drove us both higher.
His hands gripped me tighter, the one on my hip had moved to my thigh, and he reached between us to stroke that little bundle of nerves. My neck was stretched back and to the side by his hand in my hair and then his warm breath was fanning over my neck.
I felt him hesitate and knew that he was waiting for a signal from me that it was okay. It was more than okay. I needed it. I felt like I was going to snap into a million pieces if he didn’t do it. I pulled his mouth down to my neck and moaned his name.
Roman sank his teeth into my neck—sharp pain that lasted for less than a second. Then a wave of immense pleasure rolled over me. Going under, I knew there would be no coming back up from what was consuming me. My body tightened painfully around him as I felt him swelling even larger inside me, exploding my world.
I came with a scream and a violent shudder. Everything I thought I knew about love was shattered by Roman. He growled against my neck as he came, and something powerful snapped into place between us as he did. Wild, desperate, we sought out each other’s mouths and kissed as we both trembled from what had just happened.
I could feel a part of him, so deep within me that nothing would ever be able to remove it. Soul deep.
That quickly, I knew that everything he’d told me was true and that we were bound by fate, or whatever it was that drew us together. I could feel the bond between us like it was a real, tangible thread running between us.
It should’ve been embarrassing that I cried, but Roman just rolled us over and held me against his chest. Stroking my hair and whispering soothing words, he spoke to me with a hint of an accent that rarely came out, and I knew he was feeling emotional, too.
Roman had come into my life and rescued me with a force and speed that rivaled Matilda, and I would forever be his. And he would forever be mine.
26
Roman
“Your house isn’t meant to hold me in my bear form, Megan.” Standing in my mate�
�s bathroom, I stood with my hands on my hips, staring at her with raised eyebrows. “It’s not a good idea.”
Megan, who’d come into her confidence after spending the last few days naked with me, stretched with her arms over her head, showing me every inch of her sexy feminine form. Her bottom lip poked out, and she batted her eyelashes at me. “Please?”
I swore. “Fine. It’s your floor.”
“Yeah, floors that I put in. They’ll hold you.” She pulled herself onto the counter and watched me with wide eyes. She really wanted to see my other form again.
Unwilling to fight her on it any longer, I shifted. The floor creaked under my weight, but she was right, it held. I filled every available space in the bathroom and then some. Looking down at Megan, I cocked my head to the side and sniffed at her.
Her eyes were wider than I’d ever seen them. She lowered herself to the floor and was instantly lost in my fur. “Ahh! Oh, my god!”
I shifted back, afraid I’d accidentally hurt her, but I found her giggling wildly. “You scared the shit out of me! Why’d you scream like that?”
She was laughing so hard, I thought she was crying. “I’m so sorry. I just got excited. You’re so cuddly and soft.”
“I’m not cuddly! I’m an apex predator, woman. Top of the food chain.”
“Yeah, okay.” Laughing again, she wiped at her eyes. “I’m sorry. I really am. I just… I can’t stop thinking about how my mom had a dog when I was young who would pee on this fur rug she had.”
I gave her a deadpan stare, unamused.
“I’m so sorry! I just…” She laughed harder, holding her side. “I want to take naps in your fur.”
I tried to keep scowling, but her laughter and amusement were pleasing. I easily picked her up and threw her over my shoulder, slapping her ass as I did. “You’re not very respectful of my deadly predator status.”
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